


Townie

by Comatosejoy



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Partying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23571685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comatosejoy/pseuds/Comatosejoy
Summary: "Suna shinobi were all a rough group--perpetually sun damaged with a consumption-induced tolerance to alcohol, and their get-togethers reflected as much. So she hadn’t expected him to show up, though she sort of hoped he would. She certainly didn’t expect him to show up with nine of his classmates following behind him."Songfic based on Townie by Mitski. ShikaTema.
Relationships: Nara Shikamaru/Temari
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44





	Townie

Nights on the outskirts of Suna are cold once the heat dissipates out of the sand. The light pollution is minimal, though, and the stars glitter brilliantly. 

“You don’t have a view like this in Konoha,” Temari says, approaching Shikamaru, who is sitting away from the bonfire on a rock, looking at the sky. 

“I guess you sacrifice a good view for some decent infrastructure,” he answers lazily, and then flinches. She’d be offended if he didn’t look immediately like he was expecting the wrath of her fan for his insolent comment. She’s rarely one to disappoint but chooses to spare him this once. Just when she thinks she might like his company, might like it enough to want to be alone with him outside of work, might like it enough to kiss him, even, he reminds her somehow that he’s only fifteen. She pulls the sleeves of her sweater down over her fingers. She’s dressed like a civilian, and sensibly for the chilly weather. 

They’re all off work after the drama that was the chunin exams, and Shikamaru’s friends don’t yet know if they’ve passed. Temari had mentioned to Shikamaru that there would be a party tonight, one of many held this time of year when the evening weather was bearable. Suna shinobi were all a rough group--perpetually sun damaged with a consumption-induced tolerance to alcohol, and their get-togethers reflected as much. So she hadn’t expected him to show up, though she sort of hoped he would. She certainly didn’t expect him to show up with nine of his classmates following behind him, looking mostly bewildered. 

“Couldn’t seem to lose them,” he had given her a noncommittal shrug, not even decent enough to be sheepish about it.

Presently, she looks at his comrades, most of them being drunk teenage fools.

“Not the little kids I fought a few years ago, huh?” Temari says. The boys had all gotten taller, more muscular. The girls were all stronger, too. She’s about to leave, not one for coaxing a conversation out of someone.

“This little kid beat you,” he says, again flinching. She rolls her eyes, not that he could see her response in the dark, and her fingertips rest over her fan. “What’s the legal drinking age around here, anyway?” 

“There isn’t one, but if your buddies keep going at it like this Gaara might suggest we do some legislation,” she answers, gesturing to Kiba and Lee, who were in the midst of an epic push-up contest that Kiba was destined to lose. 

Just then, a taller boy approaches with a Suna headband. He looks a little older than Temari and isn’t particularly attractive. Shikamaru has been watching him all night, though, because he obviously has a thing for Suna’s princess. Not that he cares. But considering she’s just about eighteen and Shikamaru is a kid whose voice just recently dropped an octave, this ugly guy has a better chance than he does. Again, not that he cares. 

“There’s a big kid from Konoha who wants to do a keg stand and you’re the only one strong enough to lift him. Besides me, of course,” the shinobi says. She hears Shikamaru scoff, quietly, from his position. 

“Sure, I’ll be right over, Daimaru,” she says, waving him off. He looks disappointed to not walk with her, and she waits until he is next to Choji to begin her own stride towards them. 

“Good luck,” Shikamaru calls after him. “That guy seemed _super strong_.” 

“I hadn’t noticed,” she answers, her voice light. “Someone told me recently that a shinobi’s strength isn’t the most important thing.” She turns to look at him and smiles. He can see her teeth in the moonlight, and she flexes her bicep in front of him. “Can’t hurt, though.” 

He chuckles to himself as he watches her walk to his friend, grab the middle of his calf without warning, and lift him up. The boy who’d beckoned her over struggles to grab the other leg but visibly realizes that she never needed him in the first place, and just puts his hands on Choji without lending any actual support. She’s extraordinary. She lowers his former team mate’s leg to ground and that boy follows suit. Choji lifts both hands to high-five her, and she reciprocates, pats him on the back, and sends him on his drunken way. He isn’t used to seeing Temari so unguarded and so gracious. It occurs to him that Temari, among her people and off duty, is different from Temari on a mission. Someone offers her a drink, her second of the night, and she slams it.

She looks back at Shikamaru. She can barely make out his form in the dim light provided by the fire but she’s sure he’s looking at her. She decides to ignore it, and Daimaru wants her attention anyway. He had terrorized her when they were children but had seemed to get that mean streak out of his system around the time the two became genin. She sips her third drink as she excuses herself from his company and eventually makes her way to Kankuro. 

“You look like you’re scoping out the place,” he says, leaning against a rock. 

“I don’t want to hook up with a townie,” she shoots back dismissively. 

“Shikamaru’s not a townie,” he says, and dodges a blow from her, smirking at how easy it is to get a rise out of her when he brings up a certain chunin. 

“Why don’t you go nurse the dog-boy’s wounds? I saw him lose a contest by a considerable margin earlier,” she all but snarls.

“You could always go through that list of suitable matches the council has for you,” he jokes.   
“Yeah, can you imagine if we all started being who Rasa wanted us to be?” Temari asks bitterly. 

“Lighten up. This is a party,” he says. “Why don’t you try your luck with the guy with the Byakugan? Gaara is going to recommend that he get moved straight up to Jonin.” 

“Sure, maybe I’ll try my luck there,” she says, but has no intention of doing so. Her brother suspects as much and looks at her carefully. Feeling his skeptical gaze, she leaves him, strolling over to the Hyuga boy as if to say _watch me, then_. 

She stands near him and makes idle chat with his female teammate, who seems oddly terrified of her, and passively decides that the kid with the Byakugan isn’t really her type. Too serious, for one thing, and too proper for another. She excuses herself and keeps making the rounds. 

She finds that she’s made a full circle around the fire and it’s only been an hour. Shikamaru is still on the boulder, though his former teammates are both drunk and talking to him. She’s casual as she approaches them, her fourth drink in her hand. 

His drunk friends grow oddly quiet as she nears and she has the unnerving feeling that they were talking about her. 

“Your brunette friend over there didn’t seem to like me,” she calls at him, sounding amused. 

“You almost killed her at the first chunin exams,” says the pretty blonde leaning on Shikamaru’s dangling left calf. She’s loud in the way that people are when they’ve had far too much to drink. 

“Did I?” Temari answers, appraising the closeness between the two and deciding it’s platonic. Her suspicions are confirmed when the boy she’d helped with the keg stand leans on Shikamaru’s other leg. 

“You demolished her,” the boy says. 

“Choji and I were just leaving,” the blonde says quickly, pulling the larger boy along. Temari watches the two walk with unsure footing back to the crowd and she’s sure she hears the boy say _that was subtle!_ before they crash in a heap in front of the pink-haired kunoichi. All three laugh, and the blonde girl looks back at Temari. 

“Your friends are close to getting cut off,” she says. 

“Isn’t that your fourth drink?” Shikamaru says.

“I am awfully behind, aren’t I?” Temari retorts, drinking the remainder of what’s in her glass. She isn’t sure if he has been keeping track of everyone’s alcohol consumption or not. He doesn’t seem one to use more energy than necessary, but then, his former classmates were all clearly inexperienced with alcohol. That wouldn’t explain why he kept track of hers, though.

“How’s the strongest shinobi in Suna?” Shikamaru asks, gesturing at Daimaru. That makes her laugh.

“That man tried to make me eat a live lizard when we were little kids,” she says.

“I’m surprised he’s still alive,” Shikamaru says, snickering. He never understood why some boys act hostile around their crushes, and he’s pleased to see that the tactic decidedly does not work. If he’d known Temari at a young age, he probably would have avoided her like the plague. Still, that’s better than tormenting her. 

“He’s got a few scars for his crimes,” she answers, leaning against the wall of the boulder. She’s near the heat of his leg and tries not to acknowledge it.

Daimaru notices them together and makes his way through the brush and sand towards them. 

“Speaking of which,” she says, sounding annoyed. 

“What’re you doing over here?” Daimaru asks too-pleasantly. He seems to be avoiding acknowledging Shikamaru. 

“Just making the rounds,” she says. Shikamaru is pleased at how easily she can brush him off. He wonders if her answer would have been the same if he’d been asking the question. 

“Would you like another drink?” 

“Yes, I would. Are you offering to bring me one?” Her tone is cool and even. 

“I suppose I could,” the boy says, walking off. 

“Thanks, I’ll see you over there,” she says, nodding at him. 

He looks like he wants to protest, and Shikamaru’s mouth is twisted into a mean smile. The boy glares at Shikamaru. 

“I’ll see you,” he says, and walks with his tail between his legs back to the bonfire. 

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Temari asks.

“Sure, it’s a beautiful night.” 

She looks up at his face, cast in shadow from the fire. He looks older this way, more mature. She could picture him three or four years down the line, a little more muscled, his jaw a little stronger. He was becoming quite handsome, and she realizes with a start that if he were eye-level with her, she might try to kiss him. She looks down at her drink. 

“I think I’ve had enough,” she says, mostly to herself. 

She goes home alone that night, after amusedly watching a sober Shikamaru try to corral several drunk would-be chunins back to their dormitories. And because she’s a little drunk, she lets herself think about how close she came to kissing him. How she could see herself falling in love with him. When she wakes in the morning, the sun too bright and her mouth dry and head pounding, she shudders at herself and tries to deny that the thought ever crossed her mind.


End file.
